Most disturbingly, the report revealed that the United States urged Saddam Hussein to attack Hafez al-Assad in Syria because of the closure of Iraq’s oil pipeline.

The report by former senior CIA official Graham Fuller urged the U.S. to consider “urging Iraq to take the war to Syria,” noting Saddam was “fighting for his life” in the Iran-Iraq campaign. The closure of the Iraq pipeline was seen to have a “hammerlock” on U.S. interests in the region.

Fuller said the U.S. should consider “sharply escalating the pressures against Assad” from three border states hostile to Syria – Iraq, Israel, and Turkey. The report claimed that faced with these “three belligerent fronts,” Assad would probably be forced to abandon his closure of the pipeline.

It is alleged that in 2009, Qatar put forward a pipeline proposal that would run through Syria and Turkey and be used to export Saudi and Qatari gas. The Syrian regime turned down this proposal, and instead, forged an agreement with Iran and Iraq to run a pipeline into Europe, cutting out the Gulf States completely. Since then, these regional players have been the most vehement opponents of the Assad regime because they view the expansion of the Shia-led bloc of Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria as a major economic threat.

Anyone who claims the Obama administration and its allies, including Saudi Arabia, were motivated by human rights concerns in Syria is either misinformed or lying. It has been speculated that Israel has been looking to exploit the Syrian war by tapping into sources of oil in the Golan Heights area, which the oil company Afek claims is part of the “State of Israel”.

According to the secret report, the U.S. was looking to expand the death toll in Iraq and Syria as well, all because of a pipeline closure.

It seems as though the same economic interests remain at the heart of America’s relationships with other nations. Perhaps U.S. allies in the Middle East should take note of this bipolar foreign policy and take heed of what happened to Saddam Hussein, who went from receiving unfaltering support from the U.S. to being public enemy number one. This is especially true with President Trump, who appears to have undone Obama’s cold war approach to Russia and thus far attempted to create a productive dialogue with Vladimir Putin. Trump also appears to differ with the Gulf States regarding the correct approach to the Syrian war.

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